And it starts. Finally. Hopefully. Maybe…

For years and years, we’ve wanted a piece of property big enough to have a small garden and some crazy chickens. Before that could happen there was living here, living there, and living everywhere. We tried to live the “what’s expected” life and it failed us.

What is the “what’s expected” life? It is the all American lifestyle. Two college degrees living in a 2000 sf home with a two car garage, two kids, and two pets. It is 8-10 hour workdays for both adults, after school sports activities for both the kids, and weekends filled with johnny homemaker to-do lists.

Going into college, there are so many dreams and desires about life. College does not foster creative thinking individuals. College is an extension of the first 12 years of school with the simple goal, to ensure the thinking and working mindset of the workforce are the same. College develops cogs.

Career descriptions are written to attract creative thinkers who are responsible in completing their duties without constant supervision. In reality careers all have the same goal, to make more money. If the employee wants to earn more money, individualism is set aside and pre-established procedures and routines are followed in the most time efficient manner. Time is money. Careers develops rounder cog.

Modern neighborhoods are designed in grid formation where all roads lead to the workforce. Homes on the inside grid surrounded by work/industry on the outside grid. Neighborhoods are not filled with individual homes but instead with homes in various patterns of the same styles A, B, or C. Homes where the design and function are the same. Starter homes, family homes, and retirement homes may have different purposes along the way, yet they have the same societal expectations. Expectations set by a society in which you may or may not agree with but as a fully developed, functioning round cog, you will do “what’s expected”.

Unless. Unless you went to college and the university failed you. Upon graduation, you were not the same as all who sat beside you. You did not graduate as a round cog but as a box. A box who thinks outside the lines and has stiff corners. Corners that do not allow for easy assimilation into jobs where pay does not match the stress associated and restriction in thinking. Corners that rub against the pre-established neighborhood that is too small in thinking for your large box ideas. Corners that do not want to burden the already tight income with a newer larger home to fill with two kids, two dogs, and two new cars.

Sure, sometimes you can get one corner of the box into a hole but over the time, the box becomes unstable and is removed. From one hole to the next, the box tumbles along looking for its perfect fit. As it turns out, box corners that do not fit into the “what’s expected”.

Boxes In Fields is living outside “what’s expected”. After looking here, looking there, and looking everywhere, this plot of land was found outside the expected and we’ve looked no more.  Boxes In Fields.